I'm curious to know what people thought about this. I've played in one really fun (but short) campaign that descended into pure schlock at the end, which was mostly saved by the inclusion of a sexy robot and the GM playing hard and fast with the (occasionally vague) rules.But it feels like the novelty will swiftly wear off, everyone sort of knows what they'll be getting into early on, even if the threat isn't a capital-A alien.It feels like an RPG with very little replay value, if that makes sense.
>>97155844As someone who mourns the death of the franchise, tell me more about this sexy robot.
>>97155844I played in a one-shot for the starter set module. With the Montero and all.It was an enjoyable enough time. I think the main negative thoughts of the group was that most of us lived, and we didn't get to see much of the alien. Still managed to have a solid ending though, all considered.For some more specific spoilers of the module, you find out that one of the PCs is secretly a robot working for a competitor. I ended up being that PC, and decided to do a dramatic standoff in the bridge at the last moment. There was very little way for the other players to find out that I was a robot, so logically I could have just cut open an airlock to kill everyone instead and still "won", but that felt really lame and boring.For an even more specific spoiler, halfway through the module you're supposed to get boarded by space pirates. Even though you're stranded in the middle of nowhere. Supposedly that was for replacement PCs, but the GM cut it because nobody had died yet. It seemed really likely to end up with everyone dead from entirely non-alien related reasons. The fact that I didn't mention the alien at all here says something. Overall, just felt like some really questionable design for an intro module.For more system-related concerns, Stress was a good way to build tension. As PCs get scared, they roll extra dice, but have a higher chance to panic. Higher stress leads to worse results. The table of panic results could do with a rework, or maybe having multiple options for each result to ensure that the result isn't something pointless.Another system-related aspect that the GM revealed after the fact was that the alien's actions are just a random table, with some results just being instant death. I think it'd be much better to have different tables for each "act", so that the alien becomes less flighty and more deadly as time goes on.
>>97155844I put a group together and it disintegrated after playing, as most RPG groups do. >PCs are salvagers >find a ruined ship and pick through the wreckage in their suits. One nearly dies when the reactor starts to overheat after they flick the wrong switch but they escape before it blows with some valuable salvage>As the crew prepares to hypersleep, one of them (Captain) notices a sensor has gone down>Someone goes outside to do an EVA and finds the sensor was smashed>huh.jpeg>they fix it and start to settle down >console beeps a day later, they are awoken from hypersleep to find out one of the airlocks was opened from the outside>they scour the entire ship with motion detectors and find jack shit>worry.jpeg>they decide not to hypersleep and start to patrol the place on shifts>something keeps moving around in the vents and breaking vital systems>one PC nearly gets vented into space when hes in the cargo hold as something opens the doors and jettisons all their cargo>they begin to panic and hole up around the oxygen systems, since they are the only vital system not yet sabotaged >they sleep in shifts >one of them succumbs to stress and falls asleep on watch>wakes up to find an android sitting across from him with a stolen gun, waiting for him to wake up>he is taken hostage and the android tells him that he'll fix him in the medbay>someone wakes up by chance and sees the posted guard isnt there>panic.jpeg>They grab weapons and find the malfunctioning android and his hostage in the medbay. The android is gonna perform surgery on him while hes awake. >they decide to try and talk him down>the android is clearly fucking insane, his head is obviously damaged and hes babbling about "fixing" people in ways that are clearly lethal>the captain decides to sneak through the vents while they keep him talking >the android is getting agitated but they keep him calm (thank you Stress die) >captain drops out of the vent with a shotgun
>>97156606>the android is just pissed by the spray of buckshot and nearly kills captain with a scalpel>everyone else rushes in and beats the android to death with whatever is on hand All in all, fun session.
It fleshes out the corporate world of Earth which many assumed it was like Blade Runner and most people were correct. It introduces some new types of aliens like The Fremen, but most people did not want vampiric telepathetic dark elves in their sci-fi setting. It does offer some cool and neat way of going about terraforming planets and analyzing for material as if you're playing a RTS game and a blind game of battleships in a labyrinth layout.This document does a better job at exploring and giving more potential to the titular ALIEN of the franchise.https://heyzine.com/flip-book/6bd0377d5c.html#page/6https://docs.google.com/document/d/1333SxUDcSkt4QJe3DOnFN7s82SBGrtBpD6jtXAPmfXQ/edit?tab=t.0
>>97156614>>97156606>the SS13 experience but more sanitized>It's not always the alien, it can be the fucking android, MOTHUR or a giant black hole or a lovecraftian Cthulhu, but not in Aliens.
>>97155844I've used it to do a short campaign and then a one-shot.It was fun, quite simple and I liked the use of zones which gave more leeway in map design. The biggest draw over other RPGs is probably the panic system, and whilst definitely fun I found that it needed some house-ruling for longer campaigns. At a certain point players basically lose control of their character which is thematic and scary at first, but eventually get boring. Finding regular, reliable ways to reduce stress seemed to be the best fix.The game worked better on one-shots I think, especially as the spooky horror stays spookier if you don't engage with it as long.If anyone is interested, the campaign was corporate sabotage on a terraforming colony, which turned all the androids rogue (Alien Isolation-style). The one-shot was uncovering a xeno-worshipping cult in a remote community on a backwater ice world, who had found a way to ovomorph from the dead remains of a Queen.
>>97155844It doesn't really set itself up for long campaigns well. Short campaigns work fine, but longer ones just feel tacked on. The table thing works better in practice since it allows for your crew to not get killed immediately, as a good chunk of abilities can one shot anyone. The tables is also pretty easy to adapt to make other monsters, even stuff not in alien. The new ruleset I have little experience with. Anyone know about that?
>>97156606>>97156614Seems fun.
You mean the Alien RPG. The Aliens RPG is a completely different RPG from 1991 and I was excited to see a discussion about a system that I've been interested in for a long time, even if they only got the IP rights to Aliens and not Alienhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_Adventure_Game
>>97163103>even if they only got the IP rights to Aliens and not Alien>playing a game of Aliens>two xenomorphs show up>PCs manage to kill one>copyright goons immediately break down my door for depicting a singular Alien instead of multiple AliensMany such cases
>>97163103>Leading Edge Games mentionedTHE BOXYOU OPENED ITAND I CAME
>>97163194This is some Dwarf Fortress shit.
>>97163462It's laid out in a shitty way for the sake of the meme. Top left is just a diagram of hit locations, top middle is basic hit locations in the core rules, and right is a selection of the advanced hit tables with more resolution for exactly how much a bullet hurts depending on where it stops. Bottom left is a weapon data table, which is isn't as scary as it looks, because most of that just means exactly how big of a hole it blows in you at any given range.
>>97155844It's an interesting game, with a system that fits the tone very well. I played a one-shot and really enjoyed it, even if the whole party eventually got killed. My ex-colonial marine died heroically buying time for the rest of the group to flee towards the shuttle. The pilot, who was an undercover corporate agent, got killed by the shift leader, so she couldn't deliver xenomorph samples to her employer. Finally, the shift leader and scientist died as the space shuttle crashed into a mountain. It was tense, but great fun. That said, we now know about the chsracters' secret agendas, and we know the setting. So, I don't see the point in playing it again, and that's the game's weakness.
